Yes, I subscribe to the notion that if you want big fish you should use big bait, but sometimes you have to alter that frame of mind realizing that even elephants eat peanuts.

While on a recent trip to Florida I had the pleasure of watching Mark Nichols, the founder of D.O.A. lures, work magic with a variety of his soft plastic baits…most of them diminutive offerings.

Here are a few of the things I learned with this master of soft plastic.


All fish love shrimp…especially tarpon, snook, trout…why not stripers, fluke and weakfish?

Don’t be afraid to make noise, you won’t scare the fish, you’ll attract them – the DOA clacker rig is a weighted float that acts as an attracter and as you splash it across the surface of the water with a suspended plastic glow shrimp or TerrorEyz jig you actually focus the attention of nearby fish to your offering.

Big snook love TerrorEyz drifted under bridges and jigged off the bottom…why not big stripers in the shadow-lines of our Yankee bridges?

Six foot long tarpon slurp down Root Beer over Pearl colored Soft Plastic Crabs…why not fussy stripers when they’re focused on calico crabs?

You’ll probably catch more fish on the drop with a jig than at any other time, that’s why he uses Power Pro braid…you have to be able to detect the subtle strike.

TerrorEyz annihilate Florida “bonito” or what we call false albacore…why not use these offerings when they are focused on bay anchovies?

Don’t attach a jig to your line with anything other than a non-slip loop knot.


Here are a couple of pictures from our trip, I’ll post a few more later.

Here are a couple more shots showing DOA soft baits in action.

Clacker rig and trout.

Another look at the snook that fell for the tiny TerrorEyz and a small trout.

I never hear much about these lethal Florida techniques being used up North...anyone here have any luck using shrimp, crabs, or TerrorEze lures?

I would think they would be great, maybe as a teaser?
I think small baits catch large bass, I have been amazed that a striper can find and hit a small fly, at night, in rough surf. blows my mind. Look at how sucessful red gills are, I think these would be equally successful

Just had a beer with a fly guy who was in a school of hundreds of BFT south of BI actively feeding on krill at the surface. No interest in anything he had to throw. Couple of fish on a small popper. How do you match krill!?! A trout fly?

The guide I used in Marathon, one who routinely does shows with Mark Sosin, creamed over the plastic I brought down. He dropped a 6" black/plum half jerk down and hooked an 80 lb tarpon first cast. While they might have some plastic down there, what they are sadly lacking in is quality jig hooks. I sent him down some Owner and Kalin jigs for next May's Tarpon trip.

Mike -

I fished with Mark for several years when I lived in North Palm Beach and Miami - caught everything on them down there from tarpon above 100 pounds, redfish, snook, seatrout, jacks, etc. And as a result, I have used his stuff extensively up here and caught pretty much everything in the inshore waters:

Shallow Running Bait Buster in Green back with silver flake - caught stripers up to 40 pounds on them - I only have a few shots left, as I gave most to Mark, which he probably lost, but had some banner fishing days with them.

TerrorEyze - I have caught numerous Little Tunny on them fishing around both Watch Hill and Montauk, stripers off the backside of Fishers and blues and bass up to 15 pounds off Montauk (while these are not the biggest of bass, they are small baits).

CAL Jigs - small ones and new larger ones in avacodo with red fleck and pearl - black jig heads on the avacodo and red fleck, red jig heads on the pearl - sometimes insert his rattles in them - they catch stripers like crazy and I have landed fish above 15 pounds lost bigger ones (again, not the biggest of bass, but they work great, I have outfished others with them repeatedly).

They are great baits, you can buy them in kits from his Web site www.doalures.com. I always have them with me and use them quite regularly. The big shrimp in chartreuse would make great teasers for cod, and the small fly shrimp could work during the krill hatches.

Fishing with Mark is always a treat, as he is one of those anglers whose got it. He can outfish most people when he fishes next to them. He once did a test where four anglers -- all top notch fishermen -- fished side-by-side on the flats in the Indian River just inside from the St. Lucie Inlet, they would cast and then take a step in unison, and then cast again, Mark outfished all of them over and over. He has the touch.

I have used his shrimp up here as well, mostly the Select Shrimp which is the middle size version - first the fly shrimp, then the shrimp, select shrimp and big shrimp.

I have not has as much luck with the larger ones as I think we don't have that kind of shrimp around like they do down in Florida. If you ever get down to Miami during the winter during the shrimp run, you can see the shrimp flowing through the waters of North Biscayne Bay -- and waters north -- down into the lower Bay, where the fish just gorge on them. I believe that is one of the reasons why Miami has such a great winter tarpon fishery outside of Miami Beach between Halover Inlet and Government Cut. The tarpon are off the beach on top at night and the fishermen catch them on flies, pinfish, mullet, crab and shrimp .. it's awesome.

A distributor gave the owner of a local tackle shop near me a lot of "Gulp!" baits. These are not DOA's but are a "non-plasitic" plastic bait that has a strong smell and will bio-degrade over time. Great concept but did not have much luck with them.

He gave a bunch to me to try. Various types. I rigged them simply as a second hook on a classic dual hook bottom rig and had a fresh squid bait on the lower and various of these gulps on the upper hook (about 24" off the bottom) I did not have much luck and I would say 90% of the fish I got that day took the squid. Even when I lost the squid bait the plastic shrimp would go unmolosted for a long time and sometimes not get a touch. To be honest...I thew them all away when I got home. I know a lot of guys swear by them but they have not worked well for me.

I may try them again sometime but not this year. I am sure your mileage will vary with these things, great concept but I couldn't get a scup to eat one...something is wrong.